THE Department of Health (DOH)-Zamboanga Peninsula received Wednesday, April 7, the shipment of the third batch of vaccines from the DOH central office.
Dr. Joshua Brillantes, DOH-Zamboanga Peninsula director, said the shipment, which arrived around 3 p.m. aboard a commercial flight, consisted of 14,200 doses of Sinovac vaccines.
From the airport, the vaccines were transported to the storage facility of the DOH regional office for eventual distribution to DOH-retained hospitals in the region, including the Sulu Sanitarium.
Brillantes said the vaccines are intended for the A1 category health care frontliners, who have not yet received their first dose of vaccines.
Brillantes said those who have not yet received the first dose include healthcare workers in the Regional Health Unit (RHU) and Barangay Health Emergency Response Team (BHERT).
Brillantes, without citing specific figure, said that 90 percent of the healthcare workers on the hospitals have to be inoculated.
"If there are excess, we can start inoculating those with comorbidities who are less than 60 years old," he said.
The DOH-Zamboanga Peninsula received its first shipment of vaccines consisting of 10,200 doses of Sinovac on March 5 and the second consisting of 10,000 doses of Sinovac and 1,000 Astrazeneca vaccines on March 10. (SunStar Zamboanga)